by Amber Jayne
Elyria, once, had been a very different place.
She could glean aspects of the old world from what she read. The papers were unrelated to each other and she was uncertain what was fact, and what fiction. But one thing was clear—those who had inhabited this planet long ago hadn’t had any warning about the Black Ship’s arrival. They’d known nothing about the coming global calamity.
What must the Ship’s advent have been like? Horrible. Worse, even, since by what Arvra could gather from these pages those people had lived prosperous, comfortable lives. According to what she’d read, there was food and housing and technology—and freedoms, a profusion of freedoms! People could say what they liked, go where they wanted. No Lux. Granted, there were worries and hardships, and even some political oppression hinted at in some of the papers, but the adversities seemed petty to her. Minor. Nothing like how things were now.
No wonder the Lux forbade unauthorized raids into the Unsafe, she mused, finishing the last of the dark bread. The Safe’s masters didn’t want any knowledge of ancient Elyria’s unfettered past getting loose.
Not that it would make much difference in the end. The Lux were powerful. Maybe close to all-powerful. They had raised the Guard. They had made the laws. They controlled the electrical grid. It had been going on for so many generations now that few people could imagine anything different.
“Nonetheless,” Arvra muttered aloud, folding up the yellowed papers. She was still going out on a raid. She and Gator and two others who were reliable for an operation like this. Tonight. Tonight. They would head off into the Unsafe and come back with salvage, with metal fixtures and wood for building, and any other strange treasures they might find. You could never know what you’d find out there under the Ship.
Her eyes rose from the table. In his shadowy corner, on his soiled mattress, Frank Finean lay unmoving, only the rise and fall of the sheet that covered him telling her that he still lived.
She wished she could tell him she was going on the raid tonight. She wished he was coming with the crew. But her brother probably wouldn’t even understand a word of it if she were to tell him about it over and over.
A knock sounded on the door. Arvra leaped to her feet, ran fast in the opposite direction and tucked the forbidden pages underneath the loose floorboard where she kept them hidden. The knock had been the one she was expecting, the coded sequence, which those in her circle changed every week. Even so, you couldn’t be too careful.
The rapping repeated. She crossed and undid the lock. There was still an hour or more before they’d planned to mount the raid. Gator had spent the past day prepping the illegal salvage vehicles they would be using. One, she knew, was kept hidden under a hay bale on the outskirts of a disused farm that abutted the border town’s periphery. The other was clandestinely moved from place to place. It was her brother Frank who had worked out the hiding places, before that Guard baton had ended his ability to complete a lucid thought.
Gator stood just outside her door. His unshaven face looked somewhat stricken and his dark eyes goggled.
Arvra felt a bolt of fear but took immediate control of herself. “What’s happened?” she asked there in the doorway, when she should have properly taken Gator indoors before voicing the question.
He blinked at her. “You’re kidding, right?”
Behind him, only now, did she see the commotion. People were hurrying along the street and she heard whoops and hollers—something that sounded neither quite like a riot nor a celebration. Some kind of uproar, though. She must have been truly engrossed in what she’d been reading not to have heard it earlier.
She grabbed hold of his coat’s sleeve, dragged him inside. Even though nobody dragged Gator, the big man came along docilely.
When the door was shut and relocked—a precaution she always took against sudden Guard intrusion—Gator said, “You didn’t see the broadcast.”
It took her a second to remember. A broadcast had been announced today, something special. But she’d ignored it. The Guard liked to act as though viewings of such visual transmissions from the Lux city were mandatory, but it was a difficult mandate to enforce. She didn’t care how many Passengers a particular Shadowflash/Weapon team had killed. Besides, this evening was her turn to watch over her brother, though someone else would be along soon to keep an eye on Frank while she was away on tonight’s raid.
Gator didn’t wait for her to answer. He told her about the broadcast.
“The Toplux went through with it?” Arvra asked. “I mean, the lights are really out?”
“They are here. I don’t see why they wouldn’t be every place else. Except for where the Toplux and his rich buddies are, of course. They wouldn’t plunge themselves into night. But here—even the Guard garrison went dark.”
Arvra shook her head. “That’s all the ruckus on the street, then? What is it—are people rioting?”
“No,” Gator said. “But it’s exciting. It’s almost like the Guard are down on our level now. Hell, half of us don’t get ‘lectricity anyway.” He allowed himself a smile. “People are running around, yelling, laughing. I don’t know if curfew’ll even get enforced tonight. Bet old Aphael Chav didn’t figure it would play like this.”
“This is the border,” Arvra said. “It’s not like the rest of the Safe.” She had traveled and had some idea. Going to and from the Citadel at the Safe’s center so to act as Urna the Weapon’s plaything had shown her that the rest of the land was both more prosperous and orderly than here. She was shaking her head again, pondering the other significant fact from the broadcast. “Urna…AWOL. I can barely believe that.”
Gator was suddenly studying the toe of his boot. He knew, as did others in her confidence, where she went when the Guard shipped her off periodically. Arvra reached out and pressed Gator’s hand. She hadn’t forgotten the happy episode she’d spent with him in his massive stone tub. Maybe when this raid was done, they could make time for some more intimacy. Although that did bring into question—
“What about tonight’s operation?” she asked. “Are we on? Should we go? Or lay low. What do you think?”
He looked up and there was some new light in his dark eyes. “Oh, we should go, I think. Conditions are ideal. The Guard might spend the whole night inside the garrison. Even if they don’t, this is all a terrific disruption. Perfect cover. But,” he drew and let go of a breath, “there’s something else. A little while ago somebody paid me a visit at my place. He wants to help us tonight. And we could use his help. In fact, it’s the best possible help imaginable for a raid into the Unsafe. But I also need to tell you about the Order of Maji.”
Arvra, utterly baffled, merely stared and waited for Gator to impart his news.
* * * * *
Blue eyes. And scars.
The eyes were there for Urna to see. His own widened when she entered the room. The scars he remembered. It wasn’t another memory surfacing from the deep, dank grotto of his past. This, instead, was something recent. A remembrance of one of his women. The scarred one. Who had gotten sliced up by a sadistic Guard captain. Who’d had a brother who was an illegal salvager. A scarred woman who lived in a border town.
Arvra betrayed no shock. This Gator person, who was evidently Bongo’s Maji contact in the town, would have told Arvra what to expect. But Urna certainly felt jolted. What was the likelihood of meeting up with one of his female lovers so far from the Citadel?
Then again, what were the odds of not running into one? There had been so very many. Urna shook his head.
She stopped a few strides away. “Trying to figure out where you know me from?” Her tone was wry. Her wild, multicolored hair was its usual starburst.
Gator, accompanying her, gave her a glance. Beside Urna, Bongo turned. The Weapon could almost feel a blond eyebrow raising.
“I know where,” Urna said.
Arvra gave him a neat, quick nod, as if he’d just avoided some horrid faux pas.
“I’m Bongo.”
Her blue eyes sh
ifted. “Yeah. Gator said. Welcome.”
The house Bongo had led Urna swiftly and unerringly to was as ramshackle as any he’d seen since coming to the darkened town. Bongo had handed him a knit cap and Urna had tucked his long, distinctive silver hair underneath it. No one on the streets had accosted them.
Gator had gotten advance word about their arrival. Apparently Kath’s communications network was the real deal. Gator had received the two men with a hearty greeting, introducing himself as a member of the Order of Maji. He had explained the reason for the blackout, the decree the Toplux had issued regarding Urna.
The news had stunned the Weapon. Such an extreme measure. Aphael Chav had surely wanted Urna’s betrayal kept secret, yet here he had himself revealed it to the general population. A bold stroke. And a dangerous one. The Toplux was a crafty man…but how far away from such diabolical cleverness did insanity lie?
The interior of Gator’s home was painted in bright colors, and weird but lovely sculptures adorned it. Bongo and Urna had been waiting in this room until Gator had returned with his confederate.
“So,” she said, looking again at Urna. “You’ve been briefed?”
“Thoroughly.” Gator, a big man with a rugged, unshaven face, had detailed the operation. He knew what he was talking about, Urna had decided after just a few minutes. Plainly, he’d undertaken similar ventures in his past.
“And you want to come along?” Arvra asked.
“I do.” He opened his coat, tapped the butt of his pistol. “This’ll help.”
“We’re more interested in your skills as a Weapon.”
“Sure. But how many guns have you got?” He was acutely aware how different the dynamic between them was now. Before, she had been a creature, led to him, awarded to him by the Lux. Here, though, she was someone else entirely. Strong. Confident. In charge.
“If what Gator tells me is true,” she shot a glance at Gator, who nodded, “then we’ll soon have more guns than we know what to do with.”
“Not quite true,” Bongo said in a musing voice, almost an aside. “The Maji’ll know.”
It had the timbre of a grave pronouncement, the solemnity of a prognostication. A heavy silence followed.
“Very well,” Arvra finally said, decision in her voice. “The blackout the Toplux has ordered should serve us. I like seeing one of his machinations turn against itself for once. We’ll be collecting the salvage vehicles and the two other personnel for this job in a short while. Meanwhile, give me the map Gator said you’ve got.” She held a hand out toward Bongo.
Bongo said, in a tone just as resolute as hers, “No.”
Again it brought the room to a standstill. Gator, who’d been rummaging in his pockets for something, froze. Urna did the same. Blue eyes widened in Arvra’s comely face.
“What?” She snapped the syllable out. It was like breaking the point off a knife.
“I need the map,” Bongo said. “I’ve got an eye for such things and I’ve already looked this one over. I know the way. I’m the one who’s going to navigate this expedition.”
“The fuck you are!” Arvra took two fast menacing steps toward him.
The blond man stood his ground. He pulled down the collar of his shirt, revealing the red curlicue stamping his flesh. “You know what this is?” he asked harshly.
Arvra, for some reason, turned a quizzical glance toward Gator.
A look of dismay came to Bongo’s face. “You don’t. You’re not Maji, then. But—”
“But it’s my salvage crew,” she said. “I hadn’t even heard about the Maji until tonight, until Gator told me. Look, I don’t have to believe in spells and legends and whatever else he says you’ve got to want to act against the Lux. Don’t you realize that? Besides, the people in this town, my people, they need whatever we can bring back out of the Unsafe. Any supplies would help. We’ll go get the guns. But we’ll be grabbing anything else on the way that looks useful. Scrap metal can be melted, recast. Wood can be burned for warmth.”
Calmly now, Bongo took the map from his coat. He held it up. “This will show the way to the arsenal. There is a clear route. I can read this better than anybody you’ve got. But,” he held it toward her, “if you want to do this without me, I guess I can’t stop you.”
Urna detected no hint of impishness or irony in the man’s manner. Bongo was being as serious as the Weapon had ever witnessed.
Arvra gazed at him, at the proffered map.
“Arvra…” Gator said, standing a step behind her.
Decision came to her. Her shoulders stiffened with it. “You navigate,” she said to Bongo. “It’ll free up one more fighter for us against the Passengers. You’ll be riding with me. If you fuck up, I might boot you out under-Ship.” She softened this with a kind of sneering comradely curl of her lips. “Gator drives the other vehicle.”
Blue eyes flashed toward Urna once more. He met them steadily, admiring this woman’s air of command. There was no phony, unearned authoritative demeanor about her, like he’d encountered time and again among the military’s officers.
“And the Lux’s own Weapon here,” she said, the smile changing, becoming something warmer, “he is going to watch over us tonight and see to it that we all make it home safe. Right?”
All eyes were on him. Urna gave everyone a grin and said, “Right.” Promising what could not be promised.
Chapter Fifteen
The word came at last from Marny. Not in person, but by way of a note given to a messenger who had speeded it across the Citadel grounds, from the Guard compound to the military’s, and who had delivered it into Rune’s hand. Marny Vilst had signed the note and added some personal message at the end. But the Shadowflash didn’t finish reading the sentimental addendum. He had been waiting. Now he was on the move, enacting his plan.
His Guard lover with the pale-blonde hair said that Urna had been spotted. A surveillance operation in a far-off border town had moments ago reported seeing the fugitive Weapon. Evidently the Guard contingent there had received orders to keep watch on the female companion who had visited Urna on the night of his escape. After several days, he had now apparently turned up in her company.
The border town’s local Guard unit was scrambling. But they hadn’t yet apprehended the Weapon. That bespoke only of the inefficiency of border companies. Shoddy organization led to such disasters.
Rune was determined that he would reach Urna first, despite that he was hundreds of miles from the scene.
Stairs flashed beneath him as he raced up toward the roof. Aphael Chav had personally chastised him for failing to bring back Urna. Since then, however, it was remarkable how little attention had been paid to Rune. It was almost like he was being shunned. He hadn’t even been called to drills today.
He didn’t care. That inattention served him.
His combat clothes felt good on his body. The black cloth covered his face, leaving free his eyes. His blindfold was in its customary pocket. He had his pistol, the very one he had fired only twice in the Unsafe—three times if he counted the discharging of it on that rooftop, on that last mission with Urna, when they had playacted and he had pretended to be the Weapon and Urna the Shadowflash. He remembered, with a sudden, almost cruel vividness, how that game had ended. With Urna on hands and knees. With Rune, cock thrusting—
Earlier he had snuck his gun out of the armory. He had managed it with stealth, with subtlety. He’d used a coded card that he had filched from, then returned to, a dozing sentry, all without the man ever realizing. He also had a knife—just a kitchen utensil, really—tucked into his right boot.
Now he reached the roof. It wasn’t the usual one from which the Weapon/Shadowflash teams launched for their forays into the Unsafe. This was the rooftop of one of the administration buildings, unused at night, unwatched. Getting the set of wings up here had required some true ingenuity. He had slipped them off a shelf in the repair shop where they’d lain, forgotten it seemed, behind other pieces of military equipment a
waiting refurbishments.
Part of his Shadowflash training had included a course in field repairs, in case the wings ever malfunctioned on a mission. In a matter of minutes he had been able to unclog the mechanism’s lines and get it working again. Smuggling the wings up to this roof, though potentially perilous, had necessitated in the end little more than careful timing. He had studied the sentries’ patterns and slipped unseen between them.
Obtaining the radio that was secured to his belt had been the easiest thing of all. The military was supplied with them. His was currently tuned to the Guard channel that Marny said was used by the border precincts. When he got out there he would have a ready source of immediate intelligence.
The night sky was clear. But he would have flown in a driving rain, even through the maddened forks of an electrical storm. Anything to reach Urna. His soul mate. His antithesis. His need.
Rune, with fast, efficient moves, strapped on the harness. The fuel gauge showed only half full but there was nothing he could do about that. Stealing these wings from the repair shop was one thing. Pilfering fuel would’ve been virtually impossible.
It didn’t matter. He was only concerned about getting where he was going. Returning was meaningless right now. For all he knew he wouldn’t be coming back from this undertaking.
But whatever happened out there, he would find Urna, face him. And there would come a reckoning between the two men.
Rune fired the engines and lifted from the rooftop, the wings carrying him toward his destiny.
* * * * *
Virge couldn’t help but feel a pity for those who lived here on the border. Not only were the buildings they passed shabby and rundown, not only was the awful presence of the looming Ship a weight that pressed on her mentally and emotionally, but the very fact of the town itself evoked a kind of outraged compassion. Why was it here? Why build so close to the Black Ship? Who had decided that people should dwell within easy view of the Unsafe?
The truth was that this town had probably stood here in pre-Black Ship days. Certainly the structures looked quite old. It was simply that they hadn’t been kept up, which accounted for how dilapidated everything looked. After the Ship’s arrival, after the Passengers had poured from it, the human survivors of Elyria had retreated to the only place where the skies were still clear. Where the world was as it had been. Thus, the Safe had been born.
